A DOCTOR has told how he found Harold Shipman unpleasant, disliked by fellow GPs and had bad breath.

Dr Alan Banks is giving evidence at the Shipman Inquiry this week, for his part in the original flawed police probe into the killer GP.

Part of his evidence has involved his dealings with the Hyde medic on a day-to-day basis before the flawed March 1998 police investigation.

"Strangely, the lasting impression I had of him was halitosis which always impacts upon how I feel about people and, you know, I sort of find halitosis unpleasant and that was always something that struck me," Dr Banks said.

"There was an aloofness about him and he was paternalistic and I think the example I remember early in my work as a medical adviser I went to see him on a prescribing visit with the pharmaceutical adviser then and he served himself coffee in a little cafetiere whilst we sat with nothing. That coloured my feelings for him."

He also described his dealings with Shipman's departure from the Donneybrook practice in Hyde.

"I did a prescribing visit on him (Shipman) maybe in 1997 and he described his former partners with a look of sheer hate in his face and I was astounded, I must admit. It was hate and venom," Dr Banks added.

"The other doctors, it was past history, it was water over (sic) the bridge they did not like him, they didn't trust him, they felt he owed them money, but it was in the past.

"To Shipman it was still very much in the present and I was surprised by that."